How to Play Lego Video Games with Your Children

Playing video games with your children or letting your children play video games is a subject that’s been up for debate over the past few years. I believe letting your children play video games strengthens their dexterity, memory, and problem solving skills. Where others believe video games are a cause for distraction and violence. Over the past 4 years I have played the Lego series of video games with my children and have watched them develop their dexterity, memory, and problem solving skills to exceed their peers. They have also learned how to follow directions, work as a team, and important teambuilding skills.

Why Did I Choose the Lego Video Games Series?

Legos are easy for children to relate to.  Most children start playing with the toys at the age of three and even younger with the large building blocks. As my kids played the Lego video games they were able to see the objects come to life just as they created them in their imaginations when they played with the toy. 

We started off with Lego Star Wars and instead of trying to complete the missions or tasks in the game each of my kids would play a game within the game. What they would do is when they saw another character in the game they would try to make friends with it no matter if it were friend or foe. If it was an enemy they would run away from the character pretending to play tag. If it was a friend they would pretend to have a party or take them around the world they discovered while playing the game. They opened up a new world to me by watching them be creative outside the video games structured environment. Providing them the freedom to imagine, then taking the time to teach them to follow and focus on the game objectives provided them with increased learning opportunities.

The second reason for choosing the Lego video games series is because of the popular titles the series offers.  Lego video game titles include Lego Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, Rock Band, and Harry Potter. Each of these games has helped my children understand the movies at a basic level helping them to enjoy the movie when they see it for the first time as they get older.

The third reason is the lack of violence or a decreased amount of violence. The games still include hitting, shooting and other forms of aggression, but when these acts happen the character being hit falls apart into many little Lego pieces instead of the blood and gore found in other video games. This provides the parent with a prime time to teach children about pretend violence and to do this in real life really hurts people. These video games give parents the opportunity to teach real life situations at a level a child can understand (or at least repeated enough to drive a point).

Taking the time to play with your children is an important part of parenting. Involving children in activities to improve their dexterity, memory, and problem solving skills can help children to succeed in other situations such as school. Video games are a perfect choice to improve these skills even with young children. Just don’t forget to get off the couch and play physical games with your children as well creating a well rounded environment of mental and physical stimulation.

Do you have any comments or questions? We would love to hear from you. Please feel free to comment on your own experiences involving video games and your children.